The Second Amendment Manifesto: What Every American Should Know about Their Constitutional Right to Own Guns by John Paine

Author:John Paine [Paine, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: American Arms LLC
Published: 2020-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

Do You Need a Gun to Defend Yourself?

US police are better trained, equipped, and armed than ever before.

So many people think, why would anyone need a gun? Why not call the police? Well, for several reasons, both practical and moral.

First, the practical problem: There’s much truth to the saying that when seconds count, the police are minutes away. According to data collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, police arrive within five minutes after receiving a call about a violent crime only twenty to thirty percent of the time. This means that if you call the police because you’re being robbed or attacked, there’s a seventy to eighty percent chance you’ll be waiting more than five minutes—sometimes much more.

If you look at data on 911 calls—the ones most likely related to life-threatening situations—the data isn’t much better. Police in most major cities have an average response time of five to ten minutes, with some neighborhoods having to wait much longer.

This isn’t a dig at police or first responders, but it illustrates how Herculean their job is. They’re expected to arrive at the scene of the crime in minutes, make sense of the situation, and then quickly and safely stop the crime, which could include wounding or killing an attacker without hurting innocent bystanders. This is, of course, impossible to pull off all of the time.

Police can’t be everywhere at once, and even when they get a call for help, it’s almost always when a crime is in progress or has already occurred. Thus, it’s not surprising that research shows most police support the right of Americans to defend themselves. They know better than anyone that they aren’t omnipotent and won’t always arrive in time to save the day.

For example, in one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys of its kind ever conducted, Police1.com asked fifteen thousand police officers from around the United States thirty questions about gun control. Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

Ninety-five percent said that a ban on the manufacture and sale of magazines that hold more than ten rounds would not reduce violent crime.

Seventy-one percent said that a ban on the manufacture and sale of some semiautomatic guns would have no effect on reducing violent crime, 28 percent said it would increase violent crime, and only 7 percent said it would decrease it.

Eighty-five percent said the proposed Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, which included banning AR-15s and high-capacity magazines, would have a zero or negative effect on public safety, and only 10 percent said it would have a moderate or significantly positive effect (the bill was defeated by a vote of forty to sixty in the Senate).

Seventy percent said they had a favorable opinion of other police officers’ public statements that they would not enforce more restrictive gun laws in their jurisdictions (i.e., most police supported their colleagues who established so-called Second Amendment sanctuaries).

Sixty-one percent said they would not enforce more restrictive gun laws in their jurisdictions if they were police chief or sheriff.

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